Xuedan Wang, 28, was an intern at the magazine's accessories department from August to December last year, where she typically worked at least 40 hours a week, and sometimes as much as 55 hours, without pay, according to her lawsuit filed on Wednesday.

"Unpaid interns are becoming the modern-day equivalent of entry-level employees, except that employers are not paying them for the many hours they work," the lawsuit says.

Wang's lawsuit mirrors a class-action suit filed late last year against Fox Searchlight Pictures by former unpaid interns, citing a decades-old Supreme Court decision that only work done for training purposes can go unpaid.